About

As general counsel for noon, the Middle East’s fastest growing e-commerce company, Justin Dowding has a vast amount of experience in setting up legal entities in new markets. When discussing the complexities of his role, he mentions that setting up new company divisions and operations in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China, Morocco, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and India involved ‘securing extensive regulatory approvals, negotiating million-dollar lease agreements, protecting and registering noon’s vast array of trademarks, localising agreements and signing up thousands of commercial brands’. Dowding is also an expert in joint ventures, given the extremely impressive list of companies he has signed these with on behalf of noon. Alshaya Group, eBay, eXtra, Carrefour, Al-Ittihad FC and Union Coop are just some examples of the commercial giants that Dowding has engaged with on this front. It is clear that Dowding is enjoying his role and the opportunities it brings, especially as it is an atypical company to work for: ‘Being general counsel for noon is an extremely challenging and exciting role – we’re a technology, logistics, marketplace, fulfilment and payments company, so we cover the entire ecommerce ecosystem. It’s rare to work for a company that is both a start-up and a big corporate at the same time, and this presents many challenges as I balance the requirements of the business wanting to move forward quickly, whilst at the same time ensuring compliance with the government processes of our high-profile shareholders, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Finding that balance, assessing risk, making prompt decisions and providing advice to the CEO on a multitude of business areas requires the full use of my in-house skill-set and experience’.